Comments on: RIAA’s First Jury Trial: Duluth, MN

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:43:45 +0000

Yup, of course the judge will probably ignore the true value of online music (about .70/song) because they don’t understand.

By: Pear Head

Pear Head — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:31:06 +0000

Now her lawyer has called upon the original court to reduce the fine to something more realistic.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 07:58:15 +0000

One has to wonder though if even $9250 is outrageous for one song. I believe it is.

Copyright infringement monetary award guidelines were put in place originally for large scale counterfeiting operations, not sharing music.

The individual “sharing” songs on the Internet doesn’t gain anything financially from these transaction as those making bootleg copies and selling them on city street corners do. It’s fairly obvious to me that either the logic behind the reason for those fine amounts wasn’t explained or wasn’t allowed to be explained.

If I was her defense lawyer and I noticed that the trial would have at least called someone to the stand to mention that… IANAL ;)

By: Pear Head

Pear Head — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:45:22 +0000

I have to admit I was little disappointed as well. Based on what I read of the defense I can understand how the jury found her at fault. The $220k is outrageous IMHO, although the jury could have awarded a lot more (up to something like $150k/violation where they actually decided on $9250/violation).

One has to wonder though if even $9250 is outrageous for one song. I believe it is.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:30:00 +0000

I died a little inside today. It’s really unfortunate that her defense was as lame as it was and it’s even more unfortunate that the jury felt that $220,000 was an acceptable amount to award.

Wow. The cluelessness of the jury pool is incredible.